The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 379: Welcome to Gear Talk - MeatEater Network Debut

Episode Date: October 20, 2022

As previously teased on the MeatEater podcast, Jordan and Janis take over the MeatEater feed and welcome you to the MeatEater Network's newest podcast, Gear Talk, where they explore their favorite -- and sometimes not-so-favorite -- pieces of gear. Later, they talk to First Lite's western big game guru, Matt Derosiers.  Click here to subscribe to Gear Talk on iHeart Radio Click here to subscribe to Gear Talk on Apple Podcasts Click here to subscribe to Gear Talk on Spotify Connect with Janis, Jordan, and MeatEater MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube Shop MeatEater Merch See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. You might not be able to join our raffles and sweepstakes and all that because of raffle and sweepstakes law, but hear this. OnX Hunt is now in Canada. It is now at your fingertips, you Canadians. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. Now the Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints and tracking. You can even use offline maps to see where you are

without cell phone service as a special offer. You can get a free three months to try out OnX if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. All right, welcome to an episode of Gear Talk, where Jordan Budd and I, Giannis Patelis, are going to talk all things gear. We just started this. We're both super excited about it. We love talking gear. We want to help you understand and know and just feel more

comfortable talking about gear, understanding gear, making good gear, buying decisions when you're out there. It's a big world of hunting gear these days. And hopefully this podcast will help you make some of those decisions and get you out there in the right gear. But I just want to give a little bit on myself. We're going to do a little host intro bio today. I spent 12 years as a hunting and fishing guide, mostly down in Colorado, did a little bit of guiding in old Mexico, but mostly Colorado. Also did four years at the same time I did four years in retail, which was good. I didn't necessarily always like folding t-shirts and sweaters, but I did get to sit through a lot of pre-technical gear. What do they call that, Phil? When a rep comes to the store? A clinic. Gear clinic.

Training. Training, yeah. I enjoyed that part about selling retail. It was cool to learn all about the new latest and greatest stuff. It opened up my experience with all the gear that's out there by just being able to work with, you know,

all different types of brands and products in the store, which was Tarmigan Sports in Edwards, Colorado. If you're ever down in that neck of the woods, which is Eagle County, Colorado, go check it out. It's a cool store. And then I've also done 10 years in outdoor TV production. As many of you know, producing meat eater television and doing meat eater podcast with Steve and now doing my own show on the hunt with Giannis Patelis, which is available on the meat eater YouTube channel. So yeah, short little bio on me, Jordan, let me hear, let me hear what your last 20 years have been all about yeah so started uh originally from northwest nebraska on a family ranch that's where i grew up and went to high school and all that stuff um so i started guiding there and that's really how

i started i mean just getting into hunting stuff. I started guiding and then, uh, I really liked cameras also, um, when I was in high school and college. So I picked up a camera, started filming, just, uh, you know, meeting people and making contacts. One thing led to the other. And I started filming for an outdoor television show and that took me all over the place. And that's really where like the Western hunting bug, I think came from. I mean, I always wanted to go out West before and do my own hunts, but then when I started filming, um, you know, that obviously opened my eyes to a lot of things. And I got a lot of experiences in a lot of different places on a lot of different hunts. And that's, I was able to try a ton of gear, you know, doing that a bunch of different places on a lot of different hunts. And that's, I was able to try a ton of gear,

you know, doing that a bunch of different gear and a bunch of different situations and environments. And I just, I'm kind of a gear junkie anyways. And I don't know really why other than I just like knowing what I take and more so the why behind why you're taking it. And, uh, that's one of the reasons I'm super excited for this podcast is to, you know, bring all that. So consumers can make a more educated purchase, you know, going on some of these extreme hunts that you only get to go once in a lifetime on. Yeah. That's a, uh, a, a good point about like being a gear junkie and, and then it kind of transitions right into how much money you

spend on gear i felt like there was years 100 for sure where i was guiding elk hunts and i was spending as much money on the gear to to go and guide as i was probably making throughout the whole season just because i was so into it you, trying different boots or backpacks or whatever. And I've never been known to be like a great, real frugal, you know, with the cash. But I guess that's what's hopefully helped me to give me some experience so I can do this job better now.

I want to, you didn't really hit on it too hard, but I want to ask you a question. You've been on, how many sheep hunts have you been on? Not for your personal self, but just all total. How many sheep hunts? I'm pretty sure it, I think it's 16 now with this last Wyoming hunt that I filmed last year. And how many of those have been in Alaska? There have been one in Alaska and that was mine.

Oh, okay. So that was your first time up there sheep hunting was when you went. Yep. Everything else was, uh, desert bighorns in Mexico. Uh, I've done three, uh, three or four of those. And then, um, in Wyoming, a bunch of bighorn sheep hunts was most of it. Um, one stones in the Yukon and then my, my doll sheep in Alaska. So only, only one in Alaska. What was the first thing we wanted to hit on, Jordan? I pulled a listener question out talking about what's a key item that you change in your pack from early to the midseason.

So that would just be, in my mind, considerations of the weather changing more so probably than anything. Start getting snow storms in that late September, early October, and then on through October, I suppose. Um, so yeah, I mean, I think one of the bigger things for me is that temperature dropping and wanting to add in my Un Compadre puffy pants into the mix to make the early mornings of glassing and later evenings a little more comfortable. Yeah, man, I love those pants. And a lot of times with those pants, I've come to not packing, even on a backcountry hunt, not packing long underwear and just doing regular pants and the Uncompagri of puffy pants. Because I know that we have zip off long johns now, but it's even easier, I think, to zip off those Uncompagris. And those things are so much warmer and so much thicker. And like you said, it kind of seems like something you're going to wear first thing

and then last thing in the day. And so it's really easy to zip them off, cram them into the bottom of the pack and not really pull them back out until later. So I like them. Although it might be a little bit heavier than going long johns. Like it's definitely way, way warmer.

But yeah, that's a nice piece of gear. I was going to go with i mean obviously clothes in general you're just gonna be packing a little bit more because you're gonna have to just have more insulation you know to stay warm but i would say that one of my main like items of gear and it's kind of a two-part thing but it's like shelter and then like the sleeping system because early season, I'm always just trying to like push it and go as light as possible with the lightest sleeping bag and the lightest shelter as possible.

Because, you know, even if you get a little wet or if something crappy happens in early September, it's usually just not going to last, you know, and it's not going to be enough to drive me out of the mountains. But like, if that happens in October and you get kind of miserable, boy, it is very easy for that to push you in back, back to the trailhead. So, um, I'm going to go to definitely a zero degree bag. Like I like to sleep warm and like to be super comfy. And so if it gets into October at all, I'm going zero degree bag, even late September sometimes. And I'm happily going to carry that extra little bit of weight. And then there's going to be no more tarp shelters or like just like the super lightweight

stuff. I want a more robust shelter that I can really count on to stand up to the wind. I'm going to make sure that I got all my guy lines set up. I got plenty of stakes, you know, to handle a wind event or handle like a heavy snow event. And then if I know, or if I think it's going to be on the colder side, like I'll pack a floorless shelter, like a, again, depending on how many people are going to be in it, but like a seek outside Cimarron or Redcliffe that I can have a stove in and burn wood and be super comfy. Like I know a hundred percent for a fact that I've been in a ton of just really good

hunting conditions really, because you like it when it's cold and it's snowing and stuff. It just keeps the animals on their feet more. But if you can't stay comfortable in those conditions, you know, you're not going to be out there. But having that shelter that you can come back to in the evenings, light a fire, warm up, dry out some gear, sleep super comfy and toasty, it keeps you out there and thus hopefully makes you more successful. Yeah. Huge mental boost being able to, to come back after a long day and, uh, light the fire. It really changes your attitude or it can, um, and make you a little more excited about having to, uh, you know, get up early the next day and go out and do it again. So that's

one thing on my list as well is, uh, start thinking about when, uh, you, you know, you get snowstorms, especially that early October timeframe seems like those snowstorms, just like late September, really wet and sloshy. They might melt pretty quick, but that also means they're pretty wet. And being able to go light a stove and dry all your stuff out, again, is just going to let you be more comfortable and stay out there longer. So that's something certainly on my list. Oh, yeah. It's 100% the difference between miserable and very content and happy. Yeah. Yeah.

It makes a huge difference. A simple thing called happy. Yeah. Yeah. It makes, it makes a huge difference. A simple thing called fire. Yeah. That's another thing that's definitely got to be considered later too. I mean, other things to go right along with that, like fire starters, one, you got to be thinking about, I think a little bit more, um, especially for the safety side of things. If you get in a situation, you have to start one. So I really like that Pyro Putty. Have you used that? I haven't used the actual Pyro Putty. I have something similar that's called like a Esbit cube,

which is actually used for, they make a whole, there's a whole like a cooking system, stove system that uses these little cubes. But it's basically like a small little cube. I don't know how much it weighs it's it might be like the size of my thumb way the same as my thumb but uh it'll it burns for 10 minutes one little cube so yeah it's a it should give you ample time to you know add on

your kindling and whatever and get yourself a ripper going. Yeah. Yeah. I think a good fire starter is good, like very flammable to give you a good base to start with. And then, I mean, I usually take a tarp with me all the time anyways, but I would say, especially when the weather starts to turn, a tarp to block the wind and shelter you from the elements if there's just a squall that comes through or something. So just like a small tarp, super packable. Something else that I always have with me when we transition into those later months. I like it. I was going to say that something that I changed, but it's not really a change.

Because I like to carry an arrow wool neck gaiter in the hotter part of the season to keep the sun off me. But then I usually always have a neck gait or two packed in for when it gets colder. And man, I feel like it is one of those pieces of gear that just can really save my butt because I'll just have it. It's weighs nothing. It's so small. I mean, it weighs like the amount, same amount as like a handkerchief and I'll have it tucked away in a pocket.

And if I'm sitting somewhere and it's been a while, I feel like myself, I'm getting cold, man. I hopefully I remember, but I put that sucker on and it just seems like that extra little tighter layer around my neck insulates all that blood moving, you know,

between my body and head and, uh, just seems to make a world of difference. So net gator, I just feel like it's one of those pieces of gear that super lightweight doesn't take up a world of difference. So, Net Gator. I just feel like it's one of those pieces of gear that's super lightweight, doesn't take up a lot of space. Hey, folks. Exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada.

And, boy, my goodness do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join. Our northern brothers get irritated. Well, if you're sick of, you know, sucking high and titty there, OnX is now in Canada. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. The Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints, and tracking.

That's right. We're always talking about OnX here on the Meat Eater Podcast. Now, you guys in the Great White North can be part of it. Be part of the excitement. You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service. That's a sweet function. As part of your membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services handpicked by the OnX Hunt team. Some of our favorites are First Light,

Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. onxmaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX Club,com slash meat. Welcome to the, to the on X club y'all. All right.

Next segment is ask the experts. Matt DeRogers from first light is here with us to explain breathable laminates. And that's like that little thin layer that's inside of your waterproof rain jacket and inside other jackets that basically keeps like the big heavy moisture from the outside world from coming in. But yet it lets the steam and the, you know, sort of sweaty environment that you've created on the inside to move out through it. So Matt's going to help us understand exactly what those are, how they work, and what you should expect of them when you go and buy a rain jacket or another jacket that has a breathable laminate in it. Take it away, Matt. You want to give a little

intro on what you do for First Light? Yeah. So like Jordan said, my name is Matthew Rogers. I'm the senior category manager of Western Big Game product at First Light? Yeah. So like Jordan said, my name is Matthew Rogers. I'm the senior category manager of Western Big Game Product at First Light. And essentially the scope of my role is to kind of, I guess, like be the custodian of overseeing the total business of what we make and how those products life cycles track in the market and ensuring we're addressing the correct needs of the consumer in the market and building the correct gear. So it kind of spans responsibilities across the business scope, the creative scope, the scope of the market, and then working with our design and development teams to ensure that those needs I see from both consumers and the market, et cetera, are

being met correctly and appropriately. So it's kind of a left brain, right brain role, I guess. Sometimes you're all numbers and sometimes you're creative. And I find it very fun because every day is a little bit different, but you kind of get to put your hands on everything in terms of bringing new products to life. Awesome. Let's just go to like breathable laminate 101 and just really like not even looking at it from a first light perspective, but just sort of, you know, explain when someone's like talking breathable laminates or looking at breathable laminates, like what exactly is that and what does it do? Yeah. So there's a tremendous amount of science and engineering and work that goes

into these laminates that essentially are hidden in your garments. Um, they're, they're usually sandwiched between, you know, the outer layer and the inner layer of a garment. Um, so you'll have your lining facing your skin or your base layer and your outer layer. And in between there, you have these very thin, flexible layers of material. And there's two types. You usually have either a microporous laminate or like a monolithic laminate. Microporous is there's teeny, teeny holes in it that won't let a drop of, they're too small at a microscopic level for a drop of water to pass through it. But they're large enough that condensing moisture vapor from your body, like sweat, can pass through it and escape the garment. So they're repelling any moisture that's

getting to them. A droplet of rain, for instance, can't get through it. But your moisture vapor, when you're sweating as it's condensing, is leaving the garment due to the tiny holes. And those layers, those microporous layers are usually what's considered a hydrophobic layer. And it's sounds very technical, but like it's a phobic, it's like a phobia. So the layer actually repulses. It's like, for lack of a better word, scared. It has a phobia of water and pushes water away from itself. And that's kind of the really traditional type laminate you'll see in most garments. You know, that's where like, that's kind of like where you're to use a household name like Gore-Tex uses a traditional microporous laminate that's hydrophobic.

And that's kind of like where your, your OG laminate science starts. Who's condensing it or how is it actually condensing? Like it's like the moisture is leaving my body and it's in this space between me and the jacket. Where does the condensing happen? Oh, your body heat is going to, is what's condensing as it's drying. It's becoming gaseous within the jacket from the heat within the jacket and from the heat with your body. So it's, as it's drying, it's returning to a vape, a vapor,

a state of vapor. And that's what can actually be pushed out. Now that's not to say every droplet of sweat that's coming out of your body is going to, you know, be pushed out of the jacket and return to a gaseous state. But like that clammy feeling when you're sweating and it's getting humid in a, in a jacket under high exertion,

that's water vapor, that's sweat in a gaseous state. And that's what you want to push out because it's actually, you don't want that vapor to actually condense inside the jacket. Cause then you'd have a bunch of water droplets forming inside the jacket and getting you wet a second time. So you want it to condense itself out of the jacket. Does that make sense? You're saying like condense once it's outside of the jacket. You want it to leave the jacket before it's condensed back to a liquid. Yeah. It's almost like a greenhouse.

You know, like your greenhouse gets humid and has water vapor in the air because of the humidity being trapped in there. And what you want the jacket to do is be releasing as much of that as possible. I mean, most of the time when people are looking at breathability ratings, they want the highest breathability rating or the highest RET rating. That's saying that when you have that humid gas in the air inside the jacket, it's getting pushed out of the jacket before it becomes liquid again and absorbs into your insulation or your base layer, etc. So you really want it out of the jacket before it becomes liquid again and absorbs into your insulation or your base layer,

et cetera. So you really want it out of the jacket before it becomes water again. Okay. So in like the simplest form, it's literally like a very, when you say very thin layer, like how thin is it? Like, is it even like if you, if you were just holding up a piece of a breathable laminate, like, can I see through it? Is it that thin? Usually not. You can't see through it. It's usually like a, you know, they're usually like grays and silvers. Um, if it was, if it was like more of a, a knit, you'd probably see through it, but then it would let a lot of water through it. But I mean, to actually hold one, a layer of that laminate, they're so thick. It's like, it's like cellophane thin. It's, you'd almost be like, I can't believe this stops water. They're

so ultra thin. Um, and it's really just the chemistry that goes into them and how they react with, you know, when they come into contact with both varying states of liquid that makes them waterproof and allows them to breathe at the same time. It's really incredible if you think about it, that something so thin does that. And that's, I think that's another good point, Giannis, is that's why it's so imperative to have like a good lining in a jacket and protect those laminates because if once they become contaminated or take overexposure that, you know, they start to fail. So having like a good lining in a jacket is imperative that keeps the oils from your skin out of it. It keeps dirt. It keeps blood when you process an animal, it keeps all those like external factors from getting into

the laminate and very quickly ruining it. And that's kind of where you see the separation in terms of quality of gears. It's like, well, this is constructed in a sense that after a season or after a hard hunt, it's not going to fall apart. The laminate's not going to be flaking off or coming apart. It's protected and you're going to get years of use out of this versus a cheaper jacket where that laminate gets contaminated quickly and it's a one season type deal. Okay. You were saying there's another kind of laminate though that this one that you explained it's like gore-tax is a you called it microporous yep and then what's the other kind so there's monolithic laminates which you know i guess kind of subject to the word a monolith is a is a singular

never uninterrupted sheet so you'll have uh these don't have holes in them. It's almost literally like similar, I guess, to just create a, like a layman's term to understand it. It's almost just like a sheet of cellophane. It doesn't look like cellophane. It doesn't act like cellophane, but there's no holes. It's, it's an uninterrupted continuous sheet of laminate that can be laminated, uh, in a bi-component way, which you can have a microporous and a monolithic stack together. Those don't have holes. What those do usually when you see a monolithic laminate is they're what's called hydrophilic. Now, remember the microporous was hydrophobic and pushed it away. A hydrophilic is actually going to attract moisture that it finds into

itself and then work to, over time, condense it out of itself. So having a monolithic layer, it can attract both sweat in a garment or water that's made it through, let's say, a microporous layer or through a seam. It can attract that into itself and trap it and then, over time, work to push it out of the jacket again and condense it out of the rain layer. So that's where you kind of see like bicomponent laminates, you get a microporous and a monolithic layer. One's hydrophobic, one's hydrophilic, but they're working in tandem together to stop any precipitation from actually making it to you internally while also moving your sweat and that those condensed vapors out of the jacket to keep you comfortable and dry internally okay jordan any

questions on uh breathable laminates i think the only thing i had was you talked about like a rating system is that something that like the consumer sees that in some marketing with some garments of like, hey, it industries, which I mean, you can get into a whole theoretical discussion about that. But those are essentially looking at how many grams squared of moisture vapor over a 24 hour period can be pushed out of the jacket. So in a gaseous state, which if you think about it as like in a 24 hour period, it doesn't really help you at the moment in a hunt, it might be relevant to an over to drying overnight. But I mean, I, I work with this stuff and I don't, you know, to look at how much area a gash, a gaseous, uh, condensed liquid spreads over the inside of a jacket and moves at how many millimeters over 24 hours. There's,

that's a lot of work to figure out of how breathable this jacket is. What we've looked at is actually called RET testing or RET, a RET level. And that's kind of a more direct test that was developed to look at under exertion. It's actually people like on a treadmill at certain temperature ranges, what is the comfort level and what is, and that's based on looking on a treadmill at certain temperature ranges, what is the comfort level and what is, and that's based on looking at like what the temperature level

is, how long it takes to sweat. Um, there's very, there's a bunch of factors that go into that lab testing, but it's actually a direct, um, reciprocation of how comfortable you would remain at what levels of activity in those garments. So it's like, okay, we're trying to build a tank of a system right now where, you know, let's say you're, you're in Prince of Wales Island and it's 34 degrees, 35 degrees and dumping rain. So the priorities for this to be absolutely shut down to water passing through it. And you're already in cold temps, but then you might say, hey, the RET test on a new lighter weight packable rain system where you might be in the Intermountain Rockies and you're in a

rainstorm, but you're still expending a lot of energy. It's still, let's say, 55 degrees. It's 45 degrees. It's warmer. How long do you stay comfortable in that system and that type of climate versus a system at 38 degrees that you're not moving in. So it's more of a, I think the RET testing is something that's more applicable when we look at these because it gives you a more real world benchmark of how the user's going to feel and how it's going to perform as compared to just, you know, a volumetric measurement over 24 hours of a gas moving through a textile. Got it. So how do you get a jacket tested for Rhett? Uh, we work, I mean, we work with,

you know, our mills, um, that then have, we have like third party testing. It's really cool. Um, they have literally like weather chambers, um, which we do all the different testing on. And then they have like mannequins who are in these simulated situations and they have sensors tracking that. And then it'll even go to a point where we'll have people go in the weather chambers and wear the garments through like simulated hurricane conditions, light rain conditions. And we'll, you know, look at what came out of the testing and on paper, and then look at, you know, the photos and videos of how the guy comes out of the chamber or the gal, whoever's wearing it and like, oh, well he's, you know, and that can also be beneficial as you might be like, Hey, this thing's this textile is super waterproof, but he just came out of the chamber and Hey, the, the hood

opening is too big. Cause the top of his, his t-shirt is soaking wet. So, you know, it helps in a lot of ways to identify not only just like those benchmark RET testing and MBTR and waterproof rating, stuff like that. It also measures. It also kind of helps you see where there could be inherent design flaws in places for improvement. It helps you look at durability so that we use labs um kind of all over the world to do that depending on how and where we're producing this and um it's actually very interesting to look at dang yeah well should we get into uh the like why there's four and a half layers in the omen then jordan yeah i think so yeah so to bring it half layers in the omen then Jordan? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. So to bring it full circle. So the omen is four and a half layers. And that's, I think, I mean, I think that

number can be a little misleading at times because you hear four and a half layers and you're like, Oh God. Um, but not all those layers are actually layers. So on the, on the furthest outer layer, you obviously have your face fabric that you see that's where your camo is printed or your your colorway like what's facing the rain let's say um that is a full polyester plain weave and that's while that sounds just kind of not exciting the important thing there is the plain weave reduces geometry or structure on the face of that fabric because you also have your DWR, which I'll speak to in a second, but DWR will always inevitably reach a point of saturation and start to fail. And that's why you need, that's why you need the laminates and the membranes in

the jacket, the waterproof breathables. But that plain weave being so flat and plainly woven, there's no structure, There's no geometry. There's no ridges like in your jeans, let's say, because once that DWR fails, the isotopes get crushed and start allowing water through. Any geometry is going to absorb water and make it easier for water to start getting in the face. Having that plain weave is critical, and it also reduces any opportunity for snags and tears. You know, it's, it's easier for a Blackberry sticker to brush off a plain weave than something that has

structure to it that a thorn can grab into. So it also protects the jacket. And then we also used C0 chemistry, which is a non-polyfluorinated DWR. That's a big word, but I think people, I mean, we've seen in response to it, a lot of people ask questions about polyfluorinated. So I think the outdoor community is very aware of how bad polyfluorinated DWRs and chemicals are. They basically get on you, they get in the environment, and they're not good. They're horrible stuff. So Europe's already outlawed it. So I think just in a responsible fashion, both for the environment and for ourselves and just in staying compliant with different governments and different worlds, polyfluorinated are going. So we used to see

zero DWR, which performed actually better than past polyfluorinated DWRs in our testing that we spoke to. And it's not nearly, it's not as nasty of a chemistry to be coating. So it performed better and it was greener is the simplest way I can say it. Does the DWR count as one of the layers? No, sorry. We count that as part of the face layer when we say four and a half. Got it. So that's your first layer that's your face and i mean i said a lot there but that's all i think extremely relevant to how the garment actually works yeah i mean it sounds to me like if you if you looked at it under a microscope that first layer would just look very smooth and instead of bumpy which you know

if you pour the water on a smooth surface, it's going to roll off easier than if you put it on a bumpy surface, right? I mean, hit it on the head. That's like, exactly. So that's your first layer. Your second layer is a microporous polyurethane laminate, like I spoke to. Your third layer is a monolithic polyurethane layer, like I had spoken to. And then we have a half layer that is actually screen printed onto that monolithic layer. And what it is, is we always talk about 37.5 active particles here at First Light. And we've actually put those particles, it's an active carbon particle, into a screen print and printed it. And you can see it in like a pattern. When you look inside the Omen jacket underneath the lining fabric,

you can still see this repeating pattern. And that's that 37.5. And what those active carbon molecules are doing are attracting, they're helping to attract that water vapor, that condensed water vapor as you're sweating into themselves and into that monolithic layer. And they're heating up and they're attracting your infrared heat. So as they heat up and attract that water, that condensation, they continue pushing it and keeping it as a vapor because they're moving so fast with your infrared heat and pushing that sweat and humidity inside the garment into the laminates and then out of the jacket. So that's kind of where we've had feedback that, you know, Omen doesn't get clammy. It doesn't get

that humid feeling. And that's because the 37.5, those carbon molecules are working to keep moving that condensation actively out of the jacket with the laminate. And then after that, the jacket's finished with a lining, which is just black on the omen. And it doesn't, again, it's kind of like the face fabric. You wouldn't really think it's something real sexy to talk about. But back to what I said before is having that lining there is keeping the oils and the dirt, blood, anything else in the environment and from your body from contaminating those laminates and ultimately giving you a garment that doesn't fail and start leaking after a season or two seasons. It's giving you a garment that can resist contamination and actively let the laminates continue to do their

job for year after year. And that's the four and a half layers. So you have base fabric one, two laminates, a half layer of the third. We consider, we say the 37.5 screen print's a half layers. So you have base fabric one, two laminates, a half layer of the third. We consider, we say the 37.5 screen print is a half layer. I mean, if you really chopped it up in all terms of layers, it's like a 0.01% of a layer, but we just kind of call it out that way. And then that final layer is that lining protecting the laminates. Yeah, it does sound like a lot of layers because I think most of us, I mean, that remember usually it was like a three layer rain jacket is kind of most common, right? Yep. Yep. And that's usually, you know, face fabric, a microporous layer, and then a lining

layer. So they're losing that bi-component, they're losing that second monolithic layer there, and they're not having that half layer 37.5 we use. And I mean, the intention of Omen was always to build like, you know, a severe weather storm shelter and kind of lead the charge as a new era of inclement weather gear, fall weather gear for first light. So that's kind of just been like, hey, let's, let's build this for the absolute worst of the worst. Like I said, like 35 on Prince of Wales and raining all day while you're glassing that, that was the intention. And also an environment, I guess, Prince of Wales, still a good example where you can't rip the thing, you know, you got flown in, you got flown in on a super cub and you

have one set of gear. You don't want to go radio out the, Hey, we've got to leave. Cause I slashed my jacket on a, you know, the hunts over. Cause I don't have a rain layer anymore. It's, I kind of want it to be something that's just out of your mind and not a concern. And that was, that was the point of omen for me. And that's why we ended up with a four and a half layer. Got it. Yeah. I've personally been purposefully, personally, purposefully been busting brush in that jacket, just trying to put some holes in it and, uh, I've yet to succeed. So if it's one thing, it's tough. Really? I know it. I mean, we've, we've talked in depth about this for a long time, so it's good to hear that it's not busting open on you. Yep. I haven't done a full season in it yet, but soon enough,

I'll be able to report back to you about that what about you jordan you had it i used it yeah you had it up in alaska on your sheep hunt quite a bit yeah i had it in alaska on the sheep hunt and then when we got back i took it to wyoming on a sheep hunt and you know on and off a horse on that hunt and horses are hard on things and it was seemed to be it was fine then later, later season when it snowed, I was wearing the pants to keep my regular pants dry. And I mean, really no complaints on it. I really like it. Awesome.

Awesome. Hey, uh, real quick, I was going to ask what, uh, it's, uh, you know, I'm always hoping that we can sort of educate the, uh, you know, the listener is, uh, to be like a better consumer. So if they're out shopping jackets that have breathable laminates in there, what's like a takeaway that you can give them? They're like, yeah, next time you're out looking at some outerwear and you're thinking about breathable laminates and what they're going to do for you, what's like a simple way that they can apply what they learned today

to what they might buy? That's a great question. Um, and you know, each, each company in our industry speaks to ratings differently, um, builds different systems for different purposes. I mean, some companies only going to build one set of rain gear for all. Some are going to do kind of what we're doing and say, hey, we have like a worst possible case scenario system. We have an intermediate system and we have like maybe once a year in archery season, you pull this jacket out for 15 minutes. I guess I think knowing and being realistic with what you really expect to encounter and what you expect to do is, to me,

the benchmark of where to start shopping, I guess. I mean, the ratings just aren't published, like one through 10. It's not like you have a one rating and a 10 rating. It sounds a lot different. And a lot of companies withhold that. I mean, a lot of mills and labs and stuff who build these laminates, they do withhold it. And it's not published information for a lot of

reasons. You know, they're protecting proprietary information. They're protecting intellectual property. And I think sometimes ratings can be misleading because I guess here, this might answer Giannis' previous questions. Like people can get so hung up on a rating and a number that they fail to buy what conditions they actually need it for. So can get so hung up on a rating and a number that they fail to buy what conditions they actually need it for. So they're so hung up on saying, hey, this has a 25,000 breathability. Well, all it takes to be better is a 25,001 breathability. Now, technically that's better, but is that true that that garment's better? I don't think so. So I think ratings published can be a little misleading and

most people aren't trained to really understand what the ratings mean or even know how those tests are actually done. Testing can be manipulated in labs. And we all know, I mean, I think Greg said it in one of the original Whitetail videos is he's never killed a buck in a lab before. Just because something does very well in a laboratory, it's a great start. But then really understanding the field conditions and how that's going to perform for you in the field is more important. So I think ratings are a great thing to be taken into account, but that's not the end-all be-all always of how something is going to work for you got it thanks matt yeah absolutely thank you

all right well sweet um you have to sign off for both of us i hate doing outros i'm gonna put it on you okay we are uh gonna sign off and we'll see everybody on the next episode. Bye. Isn't that how Steve does it? See you, everybody. See you, everybody. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. You might not be able to join our raffles and sweepstakes and all that because of raffle and sweepstakes law, but hear this. OnX Hunt is now in Canada.

It is now at your fingertips, you Canadians. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. Now, the Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints and tracking. You can even use offline maps to see where you are

without cell phone service as a special offer. You can get a free three months to try out OnX if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet.